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Robinhood users clamor app to add Shiba Inu

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre breaks down what's driving the push to get Shiba Inu on Robinhood.

Video transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: There is, of course, a new crypto out there. Dare I say, a Doge competitor that has a lot of people talking when it comes to the price moves that we've seen. And Shiba Inu is exactly that coin created after we saw some of the run-up here in Doge. And it is not available yet on Robinhood. And that has a lot of investors clamoring, begging to get it added to Robinhood.

Of course, you can still access it on Coinbase, depending on your state. And for more on all of that, I want to bring on Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre, because Ines, I mean, the moves are pretty wild when you think about the run-up there. But I mean, how likely is it that all of those people clamoring for it is actually going to get Robinhood to change their mind?

INES FERRE: Well, there's more than 380,000 people that signed a petition on change.org that want Robinhood to list Shiba Inu. And it's interesting because, look, we know that crypto is very important for Robinhood's top line. This has been something that users had been wanting, this meme token. But Robinhood is really kind of, like, walking a fine line here because it is a meme token. And it is something which meme assets have been beneficial for Robinhood, if you think of Dogecoin.

But Robinhood also has to walk a fine line when it comes to regulations. So if we take a look at the growth of crypto transactions between Q1 and Q2 for Robinhood, that's when they saw that record activity in Q2. But in Q3, we saw that that activity plunged around 68%. So when asked about new accounts and when asked about new accounts when it comes to Dogecoin, for example, during this past earnings call, there was an analyst that asked Vlad Tenev, the CEO, about new accounts during Q2 and how many of those were attributed to Dogecoin and Tenev said there were millions of new funded accounts that came from cryptocurrencies, particularly Dogecoin in Q2.

So certainly, it was a meaningful portion of new accounts in that period. We know that about 62% of crypto transactions in Q2 was related to Dogecoin. So you can decipher that if we've seen this big run-up in Shiba Inu and this clamoring for people to get their hands on it, that if Robinhood were to offer it, then this could also translate into new accounts. And there was an investor question that was posed to management before the earnings call about new coin offerings, and Tenev said the regulatory environment is uncertain and evolving, and that they're carefully evaluating whether they can add new coins, if it's safe for the customers in line with regulatory requirements, talking about a lot about regulatory requirements.

But Tenev said, we hear you loud and clear. We know that you want new coins. And that's the bottom line. These users are asking for these new coins. This could translate to new accounts. It could translate to more revenue, but the company is really walking that fine line, making sure that it's up and up with regulations. And one analyst said if they can scale their offerings, their crypto offerings, if they can sort of enlarge those, expand those, then, obviously, this would be beneficial for their top line.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, obviously, it's interesting to see how it's going to impact Coinbase when they report in just a few weeks because they added Shiba Inu back in mid-September. So not only two weeks of trading there, a little bit in the third quarter, but also you wonder how it's going to impact things in the fourth quarter if there was a boost there, as we look ahead and they deliver that update for investors. But just fascinating to watch. I mean, I got two personal texts today talking about Shiba Inu. Advice always in the crypto space, average in, average out. You never want the FOMO if you sell everything too early here. But Ines Ferre bringing us the latest push. We'll see if Robinhood changes their mind.